Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [37]
"Oh, dearest brother!" she breathed, staring up into his eyes. "You're back, and whole! I had the most terrible dream about you dying!" She bit at her lip, and tightened her arms around him as if she'd never let him go. Oh, Mystra.
"Well," Elminster began awkwardly, "there's something I must tell you…"
With a boom, a door on the far side of the room burst inward, and a tall, angry-eyed elven maiden clad in a similar night shift stood in the doorway, conjured fire blazing around her wrists. Behind her crowded guards in glowing armor, the falcon sigil of Alastrarra on their breasts, and the winking lights of ready magic flickering and racing up and down the bared blades in their hands.
"Filaurel!" she cried. "Stand away from yon im-poster! He but wears our brother's shape!"
The elven maiden stiffened in El's arms, and tried to draw back. El clung to her as tightly as she'd clutched him, uncomfortably aware of the sleek softness of the body pressed against his, and murmured, "Wait- please!" With one sister held against him, the other might not be so quick to blast him with spells.
Her arms quivered with rage as she lifted them to do just that. She paused, seeing that she'd endanger Filaurel. But if she dared not hurl magic just yet, there was no such constraint on her tongue. "Murderer!"
"Melarue," Filaurel said in a small voice, trembling against Elminster's chest, "what shall I do?"
"Bite him! Kick him! Let him have no time to work spells, while we come at him!" Melarue snarled, striding forward.
Another door boomed, and its thunder was out-shouted by a magically augmented voice uttering a clear, crisp command. "Be still, all!"
The room fell silent and motionless, but for the heaving bosom of Filaurel, pressed against the one who held her.
And for the sword, gliding smoothly through the air at Elminster. It rose, above the head of the elf maiden, until all it could imperil was the tense face of the false elf, who watched it slide straight for his mouth, nearer… and nearer…
Beyond it stood an elven matriarch in the upper half of a courtly gown, her face calm. Only her snapping eyes betrayed her outrage, as she stood with her hands raised in the gesture that had accompanied her order, A lady used to her will being absolutely obeyed within this House. This must be the Lady Namyriitha, Iymbryl's mother.
El had no choice-call on the gem, or die. With an inward sigh he awakened the power that would turn the sword to flakes of rust, and then dust ere it hit the floor.
"You are not my son," the matriarch said coldly, her eyes like the points of two daggers as she locked gazes with Elminster.
"But he wears the kiira," Filaurel said, almost pleadingly, staring up at where it glowed on the brow of the one who held her-the one who felt like her brother.
Namyriitha ignored her younger daughter. "Who ore you?" she demanded, gliding forward.
"Ornthalas," Elminster said wearily. "Bring Ornthalas to me, and ye shall have the answer ye seek."
The lady matriarch stared at him, eyes narrow, for a long, silent time. Then she whirled, exposed lace swirling about her legs, and muttered orders. Two of the guards bent their heads and turned, holding their blades high to ensure they harmed no one in the crowd of bodies, and slipped out the door. Though he could see little of their departure, El did not think they were heading for the same destination.
The tense silence that followed did not last long. As the guards behind Lady Namyriitha spread out into an arc on both sides of her and put away their swords to pluck out hand darts instead, Melarue led her own guards forward to ring Elminster about completely.
"Revered mother," she said, spellflames still chasing each other in circles about her wrists, "what danger do we now dance with? This impostor could be spellbound to slay at all costs-a sacrifice whose body holds magics mighty enough to blast us all, and this house asunder around us! Dare we bring the heir of Alastrarra here, into the very presence of this-this shapeshifter?"